“It turns out that the very architectural traits that conventional wisdom said made tower-in-the-park projects like Pruitt-Igoe inhumane actually make these buildings ideal for retirees” ~ Michael Kimmelman, “Towers of Dreams: One Ended in Nightmare, New York Times, January 26, 2012

 

With Penn South being modeled almost identically to other housing projects throughout the state and country, why is it that it alone is capable of creating and sustaining an ecosystem capable of blending into the surrounding community?  By this what I mean I mean to say is that, according to this author as well as in my own experience, Housing Projects seem to create their own subcultures and communities independent from those areas around them. And often time because of this, the Projects diminish into “crime breeding”, “drug dealing”, violence-filled blocks of people who are trapped, unable to ever leave.

What I really want to know is how and why is it possible that the very same Petri dish which bred housing projects turned ghettos time and time again was capable of creating an excellent community for the aging and elderly by changing virtually nothing? How could this be when the architecture, with tall brick and concrete apartment buildings separated by enclosed green areas, are identical in both of these scenarios? Why is it that a park in the Brooklyn Nostrand Projects near my home is always empty aside from drug dealers, while in Penn South the same park would be a great place to bring your grandkids?

The author chocks up the answer to this “Steady income from maintenance payments and retail units in commercial buildings the co-op owned guaranteed Penn South a stable income. Tax relief from the city shielded it from escalating real estate values. Residents poured money into improvements. Repeatedly they declined the right to sell their apartments at market rates, preserving the ideal of moderate-income dwellings, adding facilities for toddlers and the elderly, playgrounds, a community garden and a ceramics studio.” But I still feel as though there is some keystone element missing in this explanation. All of this reasoning makes abundant sense, but it still fails to explain how this single diamond in the rough was able to be, while hundreds of others nearly identical to it have failed before. What is it beyond the economics that causes a new housing development to become a “ghetto”? And more importantly, is it at all possible to stop this or even reverse it as the looming threat of gentrification becomes a more real for every sub-community and ethnic enclave throughout New York City.